Sometimes the polls fail more than the same voters who mistakenly cross out the number of the rival candidate. The results of the general elections in Spain, yesterday, have been as surprising as the results of Brexit in the United Kingdom in 2016 or the plebiscite on the Havana Agreements in Colombia.
Far from the estimates, the Popular Party only reached 136 seats and has lost the opportunity to achieve an absolute majority together with Vox (33 seats). Neither its top leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, nor the national leadership dared to call the result a failure. It is true, the party was the one with the most votes, but the option that Pedro Sánchez has a better chance of forming a government overshadows any celebration.
There are several reasons for this bitter result. The extreme confidence that its leaders adopted when knowing the probabilities that the polls gave them is one of them, as well as the lack of clarity regarding their potential ally Vox. Also the scant participation of Núñez Feijóo in debates and the inability to understand the strategy of a left fragmented into various groups, but united under a figure that if there is one thing he knows is to be reborn from the ashes.
A party can believe itself to be a favourite, but never anticipate the possible names of ministers or vice presidents. In recent weeks, the PP believed in the Palacio de la Moncloa. With striking confidence, Núñez Feijóo delivered speeches from a building with the presidential headquarters behind him.
To the other side, Sánchez ran a marathon from Brussels -Celac summit- to Extremadura and Andalusia. By sending his mentor, Rodríguez Zapatero, previously to the field, the socialist wanted to win vote by vote in that last region and rebound in support. no shyness
They are two ways of seeing and doing politics, and in one of them the calculation between what the advisors say and what the street generates has failed. Not going to the debates, out of pure strategy, doesn’t help much either. Less if the rival has recorded his own documentary with public money and knows how valuable a minute of television is.
In the air, there is a Spain divided in votes and seats by almost identical halves, but one of them -socialism- with a better chance of forming a government due to the adhesion of almost all the nationalist and pro-independence forces. absolute minorities.
The paradox, in addition to the puncture in the polls, is that the governance of the country remains in the hands of the party of Carles Puigdemont, a politician who has led the Catalan independence movement and wants the rupture of a Spain that seeks its unity.